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I still remember the first time I heard the opening of the Bang on a Can All-Stars’ recording of the second movement from Annie Gosfield’s The Manufacture of Tangled Ivory. It was an extremely visceral and unsettling experience. I was listening to the CD before I looked at who was playing and what they were playing, so I wasn’t exactly sure about what I was listening to or how it was done.

I thought I was hearing people smashing up a piano, but I soon learned that all those odd sounds were being generated on a keyboard sampler. As I probed deeper into Annie Gosfield’s music, I kept finding new technology put into the service of channeling older technologies, often forgotten or somehow decayed: broken instruments, the detritus of a factory, etc. It’s an offbeat aesthetic, perhaps one that adds a whole new meaning to the expression “ghosts in the machine,” and something that I’ve long been eager to talk with her about.

As someone in the Downtown New York new music scene, I’ve known Annie for many years and I’ve also known her music, but until now I never had the opportunity to talk with her extensively about what drives her to create it. Annie’s compositional methodology, much like her music, is simultaneously whimsical and practical.

NewMusicBox provides a space for those engaged with new music to communicate their experiences and ideas in their own words. Articles and commentary posted here reflect the viewpoints of their individual authors; their appearance on NewMusicBox does not imply endorsement by New Music USA.